1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for shucking the skins from the seeds of pre-soaked black-eyed peas. In particular, the present invention relates to hand-held, manually operated devices that compress a load of pre-soaked black-eyed peas inside a chamber against a shuttle rasp threaded between side slots. The seeds and the shucks scraped off are then small enough to pass out through the slots.
2. Description of Related Art
According to the Congo Cookbook, Moyin-Moyin (also called Moin-Moin, Moi-Moi, Moimoi), prepared from black-eyed peas or other beans, is a unique and delicious savory bean pudding. (See, www.congocookbook.com/snack_recipes/moyin_moyin.html) The traditional way to cook Moyin-Moyin is to make a paste ground from the shucked seeds. The paste is wrapped in banana leaves, and then steamed until cooked. In modern Africa, Moyin-Moyin is cooked in tin cans, or muffin pans or tins.
To start, about two cups of whole black-eyed peas are soaked or boiled in water until the skins are soft enough to be shucked by pinching or rubbing them off. The traditional way has been for each cook to manually rub the softened beans together to remove the skins. A rinse is used to wash away the skins and any other debris. The remaining bare seeds are drained in a colander and ground into a paste for the pudding.
Removing the skins, or shucks, from whole black-eyed peas this way is very tedious, labor intensive, and time consuming. Many different food uses of legumes, grains, drupes, silques, achenes, and other seeds call for removing the skins or hulls. The prior art has developed a wide variety of separation and grating methods, only a few of which are affordable and practical for home use.
Many prior art food graters grind the food into shavings without removing any peel, as in cheese graters. Others grind off peels that cannot be removed as skins, as in raw potato peelings. The foods of interest here are, e.g., seeds, peas, or beans where the skins can be removed whole, even if soaking or boiling is needed to soften the skins or seed coverings for complete removal and separation.